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It did not take long for St. Mary’s Athletic Director Jeff Newhall to fill the varsity boys basketball coaching position. That’s what happens when you have a candidate who wants the job as much as you want him to hire him.

As a result, St. Mary’s named David Brown, a 1989 graduate who ranks sixth on the all-time scoring list, to replace Kevin Moran on Thursday, only three days after Moran announced his resignation.

“To be able to get a coach with Dave’s background who is also a graduate made this an easy decision,” Newhall said. “When we iidentified Dave as the coach we wanted, we decided to speak to him first before going through a lengthy process. When he expressed interest, that moved things along very quickly.”

Brown, who served as head coach at Winthrop High from 2002-12, said he has thought about coaching at St. Mary’s since his days as an assistant coach at the school.

“Since I first got into coaching, my goal was to coach at my alma mater,” he said. “I enjoyed the time I spent at Winthrop, but I always wanted to coach at St. Mary’s.”

“We are very pleased to welcome Dave to our coaching staff,” said head of school Grace Cotter Regan. “We are confident he will serve as a positive role model for our student-athletes.”

“Dave brings a wealth of experience and success to our program, and he is a graduate who understands the values and traditions of our school,” principal Carl DiMaiti said.

After scoring 1,267 points while playing for Coach Frank Valeri at St. Mary’s, Brown went to Westfield State, where he became a 1,000-point scorer (1035) and set school records for career assists (383) and steals (224). He was inducted into the Westfield State Hall of Fame in 2008.

Brown was an assistant at St. Mary’s from 1997-2000 and at Winthrop from 2000-2002. He built a Northeastern Conference power at Winthrop in his 10 years as head coach, as the Vikings advanced to the MIAA North final for three straight years (2008-10) before winning the state championship in 2011.

He took last year off and started the Brown Development League, a basketball program for youth in grades 2-6 emphasizing the fundamentals of the game. He knew he wanted to eventually get back into high school coaching, but was not sure when.

“When this opportunity came about, I jumped at it,” Brown said. “Kevin (Moran) did a great job; the kids are talented and hard-working and they know how to win. It?s always easier to go into a situation like that.”